Dear Friends and families of St Paul’s,
Yet another term has flown by and 2024 seems to be disappearing before our very eyes! At the conclusion of every term, it is so especially important for all of us, students, families, and staff to stop and contemplate the last ten weeks. I say this not only because we all need to honestly reflect on whether the terms work is an indication of our absolute best efforts. In addition to that however we should also look back with much enjoyment and pride in acknowledging all the wonderful things that have occurred at St. Paul’s.
Our students are provided with such an impressive array of opportunities that cover all aspects of college life, and we hope that is appreciated by all. These include but are not limited to: excursions, retreats, subject and learning expos, assemblies, cocurricular opportunities, career and subject selection and advice, photos, pastoral care and wellbeing initiatives, health initiatives such as medical injections, camps and leadership opportunities. All this occurs while thousands of great learning experiences take place in classrooms while in background the leadership and admin teams of St Paul’s are busily preparing for 2025! We have already employed several more outstanding educators to join our staff, and we will announce all of these in Term 4 once all our recruiting is completed.
Mr Joe Hicks and Mr Frank Ranaldo
While speaking of staffing, it is with a great deal of mixed feeling that we announce that our substantive APRIM (Assistant Principal Religious Identity and Mission) who has been acting as Deputy Principal in Darwin this year, has been announced as the new principal of St Joseph’s School in Clare in 2025. We wish Joe well and sincerely thank him for what he has brought to St Paul’s in the past. His enthusiasm, energy, and passion for all things Catholic and Spirituality greatly impacted the staff and students at the College.
We also say farewell and a huge thank you to Frank Ranaldo who has filled in for us in the role of Deputy Principal over the last two terms while Mr Foulis and I had some leave. Frank not only enjoyed his time with us, but he also made an immediate and huge impression on all the staff for his great enthusiasm, support, and work ethic. We will miss him also but wish him and his beautiful family all the best in the future. In our farewell Frank, we also welcome back Mr Foulis from his leave.
Year 12 Students
With three terms down we turn our attention to our Year 12 cohort who only have two weeks of their college life left with us. For most this represents the culmination of 13 years of schooling and while we are sure their parents and families may be close to breathing a sigh of relief, we know there is still much to do and achieve with the limited time remaining. The whole group have been lovely to work with throughout this year. I personally thoroughly enjoyed the Yr 12 Retreat with them and that opportunity to talk to so many about the incredible positive experience that has been their time at St Paul’s. We certainly hope they finish strongly and that their final grades are a true and accurate reflection of both their abilities and the effort they have put into their whole schooling here at the College.
Shannahan Cup
One of the highlights of the entire year is the final assembly of Term 3. On the Friday of week ten the whole college gathers to have a bit of fun involving students from across the College and to announce the winners of the Shanahan Cup. This cup is named in honor of Mr Peter Shannahan a former long serving Deputy and Principal of St Paul’s. Points toward this cup are earned by every student in the College across a wide range of events and experiences from Sports Day to Academic grades, to involvement in assisting the college in duties such as our Road Monitoring, or simply doing charitable deeds for each other. The awarding of this “House Shield” brings enormous pride to the winning House and is very much sought after. The year of accumulating points runs from Term 4 to the end of term three the following year so the Yr 12 students can be involved for the full 12 months – such is the pride in contributing to “The Cup!”
Achilles Cup
On Thursday of this week, we also had a substantial number of students represent the college at the annual Achilles Cup. This is an athletics event held at SANTOS Stadium for boys (7-12) across all the major College in SA. As always St Paul’s competes very well on this stage against much bigger schools. We finished a very creditable third in our division and finished in first place in the U13 and U14 age divisions and second in the U15’s and U16’s. This is quite outstanding, and our thanks go to the staff who have helped the boys train for the event and to Messer’s Gillard, Deluca, Austin, and Dorsi for accompanying the team at the carnival.
Have a great break everyone and enjoy spending time with your loved ones.
Take care, God Bless
Paul Belton
Farewell
In an update to the college uniform policy, at the start of 2025, all students will be expected to wear black leather lace-up shoes (business style – refer to image) with both the winter and summer uniform. Black leather sneakers will not be permitted as part of the school uniform.
On Monday we celebrated three of our First Nations students, Marc, Jai and Liam,
